Research into the comparative effectiveness – and cost – of different medical treatments, a key issue in the health care overhaul debate this year, jumped to the fore Wednesday during Senate debate of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl , R-Ariz., charged that the Obama administration plans to include cost analyses in comparative effectiveness research to assess the relative usefulness of various options such as drugs versus surgery for the treatment of specific diseases or conditions.

Kyl offered an amendment to the Senate’s budget resolution that would expressly forbid Medicare and other federal health programs from using results of comparative effectiveness research to deny coverage of any treatments.

When the Senate votes on that proposal, it may offer an important test of sentiment that could influence the health care overhaul legislation being assembled in two Senate committees.

Kyl and his GOP allies said considerations of the relative costs of various treatment options would inevitably lead to rationing of health care.

“Comparative effectiveness research can provide doctors and patients with important information,” Kyl said, “but without appropriate safeguards, the government can use it as a tool to ration or deny health care.”

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus , D-Mont., whose panel is helping to draft this year’s massive health care overhaul, dodged the particular question of assessing costs in comparative effective research. But he said, “Controlling costs is part of health care reform. We cannot continue to spend as much as we do on health care. ... We must find a way to contain costs, and part of the solution is reducing unnecessary costs and waste in our system.”